Why Black Women Are Less Likely To Survive Breast Cancer

October 30, 2014 3:08 PM

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Breast cancer is one of the more survivable cancers, thanks in part to large strides in education, treatment and post-cancer care. An American woman diagnosed with breast cancer in 1975 had about a 75 percent chance of surviving for five years post-diagnosis. Today, that rate hovers around 90 percent, according to the latest statistics.

But not all women have benefited from these advances. Black women currently have a national survival rate of 79 percent. In other words, the average contemporary black woman has a survival rate on parity with a white woman from the 1970s.